Wednesday, June 30, 2010

In all the years that Chavez has been in power, I have never seen indiscriminate mass arrests in Venezuela, even during those times when hundreds of thousands of violent anti-Chavez protesters marched the streets of Caracas for weeks on end. I was there. Hundreds of heavily armed anti-Chavez protesters took over Plaza Altamira (I was also there) in Eastern Caracas in 2002 and 2003 during a period of several months …

and they were not scooped up like cattle and mass-arrested as in Toronto this month.

If the Canadian government's Peter Kent, formerly a well-known Canadian journalist(!), had done his research carefully (without relying solely on US-government or anti-Chavez propaganda), he would probably have come to the following conclusion:"After visiting Venezuela, and after researching the matter carefully, and after comparing Canada with Venezuela, I have to come to the conclusion that we should be seriously concerned about Canada's shrinking democratic space."

Rendón is virtually unknown in Miami, where he lives in exile from his native Caracas, but he's become one of Latin America's most important political figures, a Karl Rove-esque gun-for-hire for right-leaning candidates from Mexico to Honduras, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Aruba.

In 2004, Rendón picked a very public fight with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, claiming on national TV that voting machines had been rigged in a recall vote.

He got a measure of revenge last year when Honduran congressman Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo hired him after the former president — Chávez acolyte Manuel Zelaya — was forced out by the military. Rendón guided Lobo to the presidential palace, a victory he casts as a blow to Chávez.It didn't take long for Rendón's reputation to become an issue in Colombia's presidential race. He was already well known there after working for outgoing president Alvaro Uribe's Party of the U.

Prominent Colombian journalist Hollman Morris was denied a visa to the U.S., reports The Progressive. In April, documents came to light which apparently revealed security agency DAS's)(US FUNDED) plot against Morris, including a plan to "request suspension of visa."

The Progressive reports that Morris' visa was denied on June 16. He applied for the visa in order to take up his place as International Neiman Fellow at Harvard University.

Morris, an outspoken critic of the Colombian government, was one target of DAS's surveillance of a range of individuals and organisations considered to be opponents of Alvaro Uribe's government, including opposition politicians, human rights workers, and Supreme Court judges.

PETER ERLINDER: Good morning, Ms. Goodman. Of course, I’m feeling much better now that I’m out of detention, but it strikes me that the earlier piece with Pilger is actually an introduction to this piece, because the reality is that most people in the United States don’t know about the US support for the Kagame dictatorship or the US responsibility for about ten million deaths in the eastern Congo, most of which have been the result of the invasions of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda in the 1990s and the continued occupation of the Congo today.

There’s been a massive disservice done to the American people regarding the truth of their government’s involvement in Central Africa. And unfortunately, until we’re able to find the documents in the UN files that tell the other story, the entire world has been misled with respect to what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

When it was confirmed last winter by then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the Obama administration had authorized the assassination of American citizens working with terrorist groups overseas, it appeared that no more than three Americans were being targeted in this manner.

In an interview last week with the Washington Times, however, Deputy White House National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John O. Brennan suggested the number might actually amount to "dozens."

John Pilger, award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He began his career in journalism nearly half a century ago and has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries. He lives in London but is in the United States working on a forthcoming documentary about what he calls “the war on the media.” It’s called The War You Don’t See.

As the G-20 summit winds down behind the fences surrounding fortress Toronto, there are at least 560 folks in jail, and anyone left out on the streets is facing detentions, beatings, searches and arrests.This is the context in which the Group of 20 gathered to write the Toronto Summit Declaration, a 27 page document released earlier this evening.

An early critical reading of this text makes it evident that those who have taken great risk to mobilize against the G20 have done so on behalf of the health of communities, and the planet.Because though the Toronto Declaration begins with a populist appeal to sustainability, job creation and financial regulation, it enshrines a commitment to force the poor and working class around the world to tighten their belts yet again as states implement strict new austerity programmes.

The Guatemala government has said that it will suspend Goldcorp's Marlin mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán to make way for a full investigation of the health, environmental, and human rights impacts of the controversial mine project. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ordered

Five years would pass before the truth behind the media’s “perfect storm” would begin to emerge, which was that the U.S. Government was paying these journalists for their performances. Some worked for the U.S. Government funded anti-Cuban Radio and TV Martí, at the same time they worked for Univision and other media outlets. Leonard Weinglass says that this “evidence of the government’s manipulations of attitudes within the community…violated Gerardo’s constitutional right to a fair trial” and is the substance of his recently filed federal habeas corpus appeal.

One might think that acts of repression and military control over domestic affairs would lead the U.S. State Department to question the distribution of Washington’s economic aid. On the contrary, the U.S. government refuses to condemn the violent role of the military in Honduras and recently renewed full aid to the country with a donation of 25 heavy trucks for military use valued at $812,000; $75 million more through USAID for “development projects,” and $20 million as part of the Merida Initiative to enhance “security.”

BRUSSELS - Talks aimed at reaching an intelligence-sharing agreement between the European Union and Israel have skirted around the location of Israel's national police headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

"Honduras still split one year after President's removal"Removal? a little sanitized, perhaps, but maybe the story will correctly label what happened a coup.But readers will look in vain for a clear statement that this was a coup, a rupture of the Honduran constitutional order, and illegal.Instead, repeatedly the reporter, Julian Miglierini, says things like "Manuel Zelaya was removed from office and expelled from the country".

Well, no. President Zelaya was kidnapped and expatriated (illegally) and then the Congress passed a resolution (for which they had no authority) claiming he was no longer the President and appointing their own head as dictator at the head of a de facto regime.

Perhaps worse, Miglierini describes what ensued as "deep uncertainty" rather than dictatorship, repression, and resistance.But then, he thinks that the event he dare not name only "left Honduras politically isolated for several months".Even by his own chronology, in which the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa appears to have been magical healing that started "a period of relative stability", half of 2009 was consumed by the de facto regime and its destructive isolationist policies.

Former Honduran President Mel Zelaya said Monday that the coup that ousted him a year ago was planned by the U.S. Southern Command from the Palmerola military base in Honduras.“Everything indicates that the coup was planned at the Palmerola military base by the U.S. Southern Command and clumsily executed by incompetent Hondurans,” Zelaya said in an e-mail message sent from the Dominican Republic to the Honduran people to commemorate the first anniversary of the June 28, 2009, putsch.

The Africa Intelligence Web site, noting that no African government has agreed to host Africom’s headquarters — which remain in Stuttgart, Germany — reported the new command “is building up its operations on the continent by coming in through the side door: via private contractors.”Africom, it said, has issued “rather intriguing calls for bids” to support one of its primary missions, training counter-terrorism forces in the Sahara and Sahel regions.

After a meeting at the Casa de Nariño Tuesday, the Colombian government decided against declaring a "state of exception" over the emergence of illegal armed groups in the Andean nation, but reached an agreement with Superior Council of Justice regarding ongoing impunity for criminals in remote regions in Colombia.

Uribe came under fire after proposing calling a state of exception, with critics accusing him of suggesting the declaration in order to make an executive order to appoint a new prosecutor general. The election of the prosecutor general is the responsibility of the Supreme Court, but has been delayed for months because the court cannot reach the necessary consensus on a candidate.

The Americas Program has published numerous critiques of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, as well as articles reviewing general U.S. policy towards Cuba. Contributors to the program will carry on and deepen such critiques. In the interests of sparking strategic dialogue and thinking about the future of U.S.-Cuba relations, we offer several summaries of recent essays and reports, followed by specific points of discussion.

comment-there are many reports of us ammassing warships around str8 of hormuz and buildup of troops all around region,however,we must state outright we do not endorse debka site,and we admitt that this is very probable...

Under international law, no other country has ever demanded or been granted that another nation state be forced to officially recognize the claimant nation’s “right to exist”, under the threat of military reprisal no less.

'One year ago, on June 28, 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was awakened by gunfire. A coup was carried out by US-trained military officers, including graduates of the infamous US Army School of the Americas (WHINSEC) in Georgia. President Zelaya was illegally taken to Costa Rica.

Democracy in Honduras ended as a de facto government of the rich and powerful seized control. A sham election backed by the US confirmed the leadership of the coup powers. The US and powerful lobbyists continue to roam the hemisphere trying to convince other Latin American countries to normalize relations with the coup government. The media has ignored the revival of US hard power in the Americas and the widespread resistance which challenges it.'

'Tillman sacrificed the good life and a multi-million dollar football career in the belief that he was defending his country from outside enemies, and soon after 9/11 turned down a contract offer of $3.6 million over three years from the Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army.It was during Tillman's second deployment to Afghanistan, after previously serving in Iraq, that he was killed by what the U.S. military initially claimed was a Taliban ambush.

It later emerged that the ambush story had been concocted by the Pentagon in an attempt to exploit Tillman's death for pro-war propaganda. Subsequent investigations claimed that Tillman was killed as a result of a friendly fire accident.However, in July 2007, the results of an Army medical report found that Tillman had been shot three times in the head with an M16 from a mere 10 yards away, clearly suggesting that the incident was a targeted assassination.'

all the plainclothes people running in that pack, and being let behind the line, are cops--including the black-clad 'anarchist' !!!! BTW, watch out for the old white-bearded flannel shirt cop and the famous 'scary lady' cop

'Full body scanners at airports could increase your risk of skin cancer, experts warn. The X-ray machines have been brought in at Manchester, Gatwick and Heathrow. But scientists say radiation from the scanners has been underestimated and could be particularly risky for children.

They say that the low level beam does deliver a small dose of radiation to the body but because the beam concentrates on the skin - one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the human body - that dose may be up to 20 times higher than first estimated.'

'As I was writing every one of my previous Reflections, and a catastrophe was quickly zeroing in on humanity, my major concern was to fulfill the primary duty to inform our people. Today, I feel more relax than 26 days ago. As the situation evolves, I can reiterate and expand on the information to the national and international public.

Obama has committed to attend the quarterfinals match on July 2, if his country’s team makes it to that stage. He supposedly knows better than anyone that the quarterfinals will not be contested because very serious developments will take place before that; or at least he should know.'

'If you were the President of the United States and you see that Gulf wildlife are dying and fishermen and tourist businesses are suffering from the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, wouldn’t you do EVERYTHING humanly possible to help? I would. I would be down on the beach with my sleeves rolled up to help with the cleanup, picking up tarballs and cleaning off oil from seabirds.

Instead, Obama has turned down 13 countries’ offers to help clean up the BP oil spill. The Dutch were the first to offer assistance that, if accepted, would have cleaned up the spill in a matter of weeks. Frustrated by the federal government’s inaction and BP’s ineffectiveness, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal took action and got oil-fighting vacuum barges to remove the oil. But then the Coast Guard shut down all 16 barges last Wednesday, claiming their operations needed to be halted until inspections and certifications could be done.'

This week, newspapers around the world received reports and signed documents from South Africa. The reports said that, in 1975, Israel agreed to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. South Africa then released an arms agreement signed by current Israeli President Shimon Peres. This is the document “heard round the world.”

Meetings are being held in New York to set up a conference for 2012 to guarantee that the Middle East is nuclear free. Israel has been informed that it will not be able to hide behind denials and that the nuclear arsenal put on the sale block by Israel in 1975, and nobody knows how many times since, has to go. When Israel was finally caught, it changed at least one part of a game, but the game will go on.'

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone have lost another court bid to stop the expansion of the Cortez Hills mine project on their traditional territory. On June 18, 2010, the U.S. Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to rule against the Shoshone,

For more than a decade, Raytheon has hailed Tucson as the Missile Technology Capital of the World - a center for lethal innovation and cutting-edge killing for profit. From Standard Missiles to Star Wars "kill vehicles", Mavericks and AMRAAMs, microwave crowd control beams and pilotless drones, cluster bombs and cruise missiles - it's all made here, some even sold to friends and foes of friends alike.We oppose the militarism that exploits this need, "developing" our own community at the expense of others around the world.

At Thursday's Town Hall forum, the Ecuadoreans will present to the Houma community a report containing ten lessons the communities in Ecuador have compiled from their experience in confronting severe oil contamination. Entitled The Lasting Stain of Oil: Cautionary Tales and Lessons from the Amazon, the report details some of the hidden health, environmental, cultural, and economic impacts of an oil disaster, as well as lessons for holding the polluter accountable and planning for long-term recovery.

The report was prepared by the Asamblea de Afectados por Texaco (The Assembly of Communities Affected by Chevron/Texaco), in conjunction with Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch, two U.S.-based advocacy organizations that support the efforts of communities in Ecuador to demand environmental cleanup.

Experts estimate that approximately 345 million gallons of pure crude were discharged into Ecuador's rainforest and waterways relied on by local groups for fishing, bathing, and drinking. For decades, Texaco (now Chevron) deliberately dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste, 17 million gallons of oil, and left over 900 unlined oil pits in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest. The contamination has decimated Indigenous groups in Ecuador and caused an outbreak of illness, birth defects, and cancers that have accounted for at least 1,400 deaths.

Overthrown Honduran president Manuel Zelaya accused the United States of trying to whitewash the coup that removed him from office in that small Central American nation one year ago.The coup was planned at the US military base in Palmerola, Honduras by the US Southern Command, Zelaya said in an exclusive interview with the Telam news agency.

The former president emphasized that his country's soldiers merely carried out the violent aspect of the coup, and said the former de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, wasa figurehead.In Zelaya's opinion, his violent overthrow was a consequence of his government's adoption of measures contrary to the interests of the White House.

He mentioned modifications to monetary, exchange and wage policies that contradicted the policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the signing of association treaties with Petrocaribe and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).Zelaya reiterated that although the US Department always denied its participation in the coup, "time and U.S. public support to the coup and its perpetrators finally confirmed its participation."

The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents 850,000 workers in Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States, and the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMMSRM), known as the Mineros, which represents 180,000 workers in Mexico, have announced plans to explore uniting into one international union. The agreement to begin exploration of a merger was signed on June 21.

One of the greatest contributions that Cuba made in the
liberation of Africa was sending Cuban troops to fight in Angola with
the MPLA. In winning the immensely decisive battle of Cuito Cuanavale,
the Cubans signalled to South Africa that its apartheid policies would
not last much longer. Three of the Cuban Five unjustly convicted
in the US fought in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. AMANDLA!

From day one, the brave and determined people of Honduras fought the coup and have been fighting for the last 365 days.This is a brief video tribute to people of the Honduran resistance and their determination to take their country back from the murderous thugs that kidnapped President Zelaya and violated their constitution.

"Just as Israel stated it was not using white phosphorous on the civilians of Gaza last year, claimed that murdered activist Thomas Hurndall was armed and just as it refused a UN investigation into the Jenin massacre in 2003, the pattern of Israeli lies and intransigence continues. And, as with the Israeli assault on the USS Liberty which killed 34 American sailors and wounded 171, the media in the USA covered it up and never investigated. It seems some things never change."

U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sanchez on Thursday gave Colombia further guarantees that the FTA will be passed by the U.S. Congress, but stressed that it will take time.

Colombia modified its extradition law so that demobilized paramilitaries participating in the Justice and Peace program can not be extradited until they have adequately complied with the national reparation process.

Dhaka, June 26 (bdnews24.com)—Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury on Saturday advised the World Bank to exercise caution while talking on Bangladesh's internal matters. Her advice came during a speech she made in parliament on the proposed budget in which the minister also alleged that the multilateral development agency is promoting incompetence in the government. "Check yourself while talking. You don't give us much loan," Matia, a former communist leader, said.

The IMF is still prescribing pro-cyclical policies that constrain public spending
Despite pledges to address the crisis in flexible and innovative ways, the IMF’s key objective in crisis loans remains “macroeconomic stability” through the “tightening of monetary and fiscal policies.”

This Tuesday, June 29, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will hold a confirmation hearing for President Obama's nomination of Mark Feierstein to head USAID programs in Latin America. Feierstein, of the firm Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner served as a political adviser to former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada during his 2002 Presidential campaign. Sánchez de Lozada resigned and fled to Chevy Chase, Maryland in 2003 to escape prosecution for the massacre of 60 protesters by troops operating under his orders.

Last year Feierstein and his colleagues again conducted polling in Bolivia to assist the campaign of right wing candidate Manfred Reyes Villa, who lost by a landslide to President Evo Morales.[i] The appointment of the political pollster has increased apprehension in the region that aid programs will continue to be used to support US-favored political actors within the region's democracies.

TEGUCIGALPA - The de facto veto power that the military exercised with the toppling of president Manuel Zelaya exactly one year ago today effectively blocks any possible political or electoral reforms, experts say.

Plans for a missile base on South Korea's Jeju island, 450 kilometers, from Shanghai have threatened to disturb a precarious balance of power in the East China Sea. But Washington's aspirations to use the base have been blocked by residents of the island.

The administration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak announced commitments in 2008 and 2009 to purchase and deploy a fleet of Aegis destroyers equipped with US anti-ballistic missile and radar systems, built jointly by Hyundai and Lockheed-Martin.

The Cheonan incident has also accelerated preparation of a long-term US deployment in the region, including talk that a US carrier group may arrive shortly.

A retired U.S. Air Force colonel charged in the 1980s in an Iran-contra related weapons smuggling case has been indicted in a U.S. federal court in Miami with conspiring with an Israeli aeronautics engineer to illegally export 2,000 AK-47s to Somalia.

The study estimating that 100,000 Americans die each year from their prescriptions looked only at deaths from known side effects. That is, those deaths didn’t happen because the doctor made a mistake and prescribed the wrong drug, or the pharmacist made a mistake in filling the prescription, or the patient accidentally took too much.

Unfortunately, thousands of patients die from such mistakes too, but this study looked only at deaths where our present medical system wouldn’t fault anyone. Tens of thousands of people are dying every year from drugs they took just as the doctor directed. This shows you how dangerous medications are.'

'More than three billion dollars in cash has been flown out of Kabul in recent years amid fears that ill-gotten gains from corruption and narcotics are being stashed overseas, a report said Monday.

The Wall Street Journal said the cash -- more than the Afghan government collects in tax and customs revenue annually -- is legally declared and packed into suitcases or cargo pallets on flights out of Kabul International Airport. "A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen. And opium, of course," a US official who is investigating corruption and Taliban financing told the newspaper.'

'A three year independent investigation into the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon has yielded new eyewitness evidence which, according to the Southern California-based researchers who conducted the investigation, "conclusively (and unfortunately) establishes as a historical fact that the violence which took place in Arlington that day was not the result of a surprise attack by suicide hijackers, but rather a military black operation involving a carefully planned and skillfully executed deception."

They have compiled the most pertinent testimony into an 81 minute video presentation entitled National Security Alert, which has earned the respect and praise of a growing number of distinguished academics, journalists, writers, entertainers, pilots, and military personnel.' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FhQc-LJ-o&feature=player_embedded

'In its never-ending attempt to fabricate "mental disorders" out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they've invented yet: Healthy eating disorder.

This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you're "mentally diseased" and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs. The Guardian newspaper reports, "Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder" and goes on to claim this "disease" is called orthorexia nervosa -- which is basically just Latin for "nervous about correct eating".'

'It has been reported that our well-oiled government is planning mass evacuations of Gulf coast cities. Sources close to the government like investigative journalist Wayne Madsen reported: “Plans are being put in place for the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mandeville, Hammond, Houma, Belle Chase, Chalmette, Slidell, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pensacola, Hattiesburg, Mobile, Bay Minette, Fort Walton Beach, Panama City, Crestview, and Pascagoula".

Council on Foreign Relations member, Matt Simmons, was quoted on June 23rd in the Washington Post, “We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states. Can you imagine evacuating 20 million people? . . . This story is 80 times worse than I thought".'

Following on from such stellar contributions to foundation activism, Herskovits continued to be a "key player in the development of foundation-backed African studies programs" in the United States, and during the 1930s and 1940s he served as an adviser to the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Moreover, by 1948 he had set up the "first major interdisciplinary African studies" program;

in the early 1950s he was the key academic adviser on Africa to the Ford Foundation, and in 1957 "he played a pivotal role in the establishment of the African Studies Association (ASA) and became its first president." It is clear that Herskovits's scholarship fulfilled a critical role for capitalist elites during his fruitful academic career, but the irony is that he actually saw himself as a defender of freedom and liberty.

As Gershenhorn writes: "His beliefs in egalitarianism and cultural relativism convinced him to reject racial hierarchies, to oppose the notion of universal values, and to argue that no outsider could objectively evaluate another culture." (16) Yet, unfortunately, these were the characteristics that rendered Herskovits the perfect theorist of imperialist power brokers, which ultimately enabled him to help enforce and legitimate oppressive capitalist cultural hegemony worldwide.

University of Miami scandal raises questions about government research http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6046.shtmlSome say the incident in which the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) assured the University of Miami’s medical school dean if he hired Charles Nemeroff, MD, the disgraced researcher, Nemeroff could still pull in government grants is an example of the Old Boy’s Network.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007 by a majority of Australians. On Thursday morning, June 24, 2010, Mr Rudd was ousted and replaced by his deputy, Ms Julia Gillard, in one of the most vicious political executions in Australia’s political history, a bloodless coup d'état. The executioners were a collection of right-wing Labor Party (ALP) “powerbrokers”, trade union bosses, and mining billionaires. It is expected that Ms Gillard’s elevation as an illegitimate Prime Minister will serve the interests of a wealthy minority at the expense of ordinary Australians.

"We believe that such invasive surveillance of the entire population is unacceptable. With a data retention regime in place, sensitive information about social contacts (including business contacts), movements and the private lives (e.g. contacts with physicians, lawyers, workers councils, psychologists, helplines, etc) of 500 million Europeans is collected in the absence of any suspicion."

WEST BANK—In the wake of the Conservative government funding cuts to NGOs critical of Israel, independent journalist David Parker travelled to the West Bank in April to learn more about the reality of life in Palestine.Israel maintains a three-year long siege on Gaza, and continues to actively colonize the West Bank, displacing Palestinians, stealing land, and enforcing a matrix of control.

The Law Union of Ontario Movement Defence Committee [MDC] has issued an Appeal for broad political support for the G20 arrestees, estimated at nearly 500. Not arrested were members of the supposed anarchist group, Black Bloc, which is suspected of being a police psyops group ordered to start the G20 riot yesterday. Among the protestors, two professional journalists were also reportedly beaten and one arrested.

President Obama’s trade representative hosted trade talks from June 14-18 in San Francisco to advance the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a new framework among eight (8) nations: Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States.

Gulf Coast American Indian Tribes in southeast Louisiana impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will be hosting a cultural exchange with their Ecuadorean counterparts who have been severely impacted for decades by Chevron's oil contamination in Ecuador's rainforest.

The Amazon leaders will tour areas of the Bayou affected by the spill, have community exchanges with the Houma and other Gulf coast residents, and participate in a public meeting in the heart of the largest Houma community on Thursday evening. The Ecuadorean leaders are scheduled to arrive Sunday and hope to share their experiences in recovery and protecting health, livelihoods, and culture in the wake of an oil disaster of this magnitude.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced Israel as a "genocidal" government on Sunday as he hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit to Latin America.Chavez has drawn close to Syria and Iran, and cut ties with Israel last year to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. "We have common enemies," Chavez said, describing them as "the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel."

We’ve seen up close how the production and trafficking of illicit drugs has fueled a war in Colombia, corrupted governments in Central America and brought terrifying violence to Mexican communities. We know about the devastating effects of drug abuse in our own neighborhoods in the United States.

What has become clear is that solutions the U.S. government has pursued, such as the massive aerial spraying campaign in Colombia which destroys food as well as illicit drug crops or aid that encourages the Mexican army to police the streets and checkpoints do not solve the problem. Instead, it leads to more devastation and violence.

Two people were killed June 28 as Indian security forces fired on protesters at various places around the Kashmir Valley. Eight Kashmiri civilians have now been killed in incidents involving Indian security forces in less than three weeks. Local Muslim leaders have called a campaign of civil disobedience to demand repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which permits India's security forces in Kashmir to use force with wide latitude. (World Bulletin, Hindustan Times, NYT, June 28)

Faced with this scenario, governments and international institutions have bent to the designs of the transnational corporations and have become accomplices, when not co- profiteers, in a productivist, unsustainable and privatized food system. The alleged "concern" of these governments and institutions (G8, World Trade Organization, World Bank and so on) at the increase in the price of the staple foods and its impact on the most disadvantaged populations of the Southern countries [1

Each media show is sure to feature the same harping against protectionism. All over the world, the World Trade Organization (WTC), backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Funds (IMF), pursues its mission of doing away with national protections viewed as obstacles to free trade. This means people’s fundamental rights, such as the right to food sovereignty, are sacrificed on the altar of growth and TNC profits.

On June 23 the Guatemalan government agreed to suspend operations at the Marlin gold mine in the western department of San Marcos, which is owned by Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, SA, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), a Washington, DC-based agency of the Organization of American States (OAS),

had ordered Guatemala on May 21 to carry out the suspension within 20 days; the IACHR was responding to a complaint filed by indigenous inhabitants of the communities of Sipacapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacán who say the mine has caused significant damage to residents’ health and the local environment [see Update #1035].

Fernando Barillas, an adviser to Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom, told Bloomberg News on June 23 that there was “no exact day yet” for the suspension. “Perhaps within 15 days or a month," he added. On June 25 Guatemalan vice president Rafael Espada said that “many steps have to be completed” to shut down the mine and that it might take three months.

A mission of IACHR technicians is slated to visit the mine in July, and Goldcorp spokesperson Jeff Wilhoit indicated that the company expected the IACHR mission not to find serious problems with the mine and that the suspension would never take place. (Vancouver Sun 6/25/10; ACAN-EFE 6/25/10 via terra.com (Spain))

Some 85% of the gross profits from trafficking cocaine from South America to the US remain with US distribution networks, Antonio Luigi Mazzitelli, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) representative for Mexico and Central America, told the Spanish wire service EFE on June 26.According to Mazzitelli, gross profits from trafficking to the US came to about $35 billion in 2008.

The growers in the Andean region got some $500 million, while $400 million went to the local traffickers. The Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, which transport the cocaine from South America to the US, made some $4.6 billion in gross profits in 2008. Of the remaining $29.5 billion, $5.3 billion went to the 200 major distributors in the US and $24.2 billion to 6,000 US intermediaries and an unknown number of small-scale vendors.

Mazzitelli said that these figures, which appear in the UNODC’s World Drug Report 2010, released on June 23, “demythologize” the idea that the Latin American drug traffickers are the main beneficiaries of the drug trade. (El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/27/10 from EFE; El Colombiano (Antioquia, Colombia) 6/26/10 from EFE)

MC: Israel has been funded and encouraged to develop a nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads, while the Iranians who do not even have one, but who control a lot of oil, are deemed to be a threat to world peace. Frankly, in these circumstances the Iranians and others would be justified in thinking they need some means of defending themselves against the only real threat at present-

and against those who are in fact being the most provocative as well as doing the vast majority of the killing: US-Israel.GA: This is indeed a very valid point. From an Iranian perspective, nuclear military capacity is a defensive means. The Iranians are constantly under a nuclear threat and so are the rest of the countries in the region and beyond

The Honduran coup, carried out by U.S. allies and U.S.-trained military officers against the democratically elected President Mel Zelaya, was a watershed event in relations between Washington and Latin America. It was nearly one year ago, on June 28, that the remaining hopes that the Obama Administration would treat its neighbors to the south differently than the Bush team did, were destroyed. While the Clintons' close confidant and adviser Lanny Davis counseled and lobbied for the coup regime, the Obama Administration did everything that it could to help the dictatorship survive and legitimize itself.

This despite unanimous resolutions in the OAS and the United Nations calling for the "immediate and unconditional reinstatement" of President Zelaya, two words that the Obama Administration would never utter, as it ignored for more than five months the murders, closing of independent media, and other massive human rights violations that made the "free and fair" elections last November in Honduras a sick joke.

On Thursday, June 17, 2010, we made our way to the Caracas barrio of Chapellín. The barrio is a large, impoverished area developed through illegal land settlements over decades. We arrived at the Comuna of the barrio, a house taken over from drug dealers by local community activists, using finances from the Chávez government. Rosa María González, a leading activist in the Comuna, and spokesperson for Habitat and Land program in the barrio, took time out of her schedule to speak with us outside the house of the Comuna.

In general, the US continued to disregard the increasingly threatening measures taking place – activists, media, and government figures opposed to the coup were targeted, resulting in account after account of kidnapping, torture, and murder.

Developing countries should be able to adopt a ’polluter pays’ principle for ecological disasters.The $20bn fund that Barack Obama managed to get BP to agree to set up to meet claims for economic losses and environmental costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is impressive, especially since the amount can be increased.

A group of MEPs is calling for action as further details of an alleged covert operation conducted by the Colombian intelligence agency (DAS) continue to emerge, with one of its reported aims being to undermine the authority of the European Parliament.

IPS observed a police officer conducting random searches of pedestrians. Asked why he was doing so, the officer...replied, "Do you want to be responsible for a terrorist attack?"...The officer stated that the transit system was shut down due to a "terrorist threat" posed by anarchists, that a cache of Molotov cocktails had been discovered, and that the crude weapons were "all over the city"...A spokesperson for the G8/G20 Integrated Security Unit later contradicted the police officer, stating in a phone interview, "There's no terrorist threat."

A review of Denis Lehane’s recent book Unperson, A Life Destroyed quotes how this award winning journalist – “refused to work undercover for the CIA and MI5 who, in revenge, spread [false] rumours that he was insane, an alcoholic and a serial rapist …. He was [later on in London] arrested on a trumped-up charge of terrorism, forbidden to choose any lawyers, tried in his absence and condemned to a psychiatric prison”

We live in a political and economic system based on constant violence; exploitation of workers, destruction of the environment, war, racist police killings, hunger and homelessness in an environment of plenty, denial of land and self-government to indigenous peoples, plundering of the resources of the Third World and the arming of repressive regimes.

A military spokesman said the meeting would focus on "cooperation between the two armies and the challenges they have to face," but defence officials quoted by the Jerusalem Post said the two would discuss Iran's nuclear programme and the situation in Syria and Lebanon.

Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely identified with high crimes against humanity “won” the recent Presidential elections in Colombia, June 2010. The major electronic and print media CNN, FOX News, Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the once liberal Financial Times (FT) hailed Santos election, as a great victory for democracy. According to the FT, “Colombia not Venezuela is (the) best model for Latin America”

(FT 6/23/2010 p. 8). Citing Santos “overwhelming” margin – he garnered 69% of the vote, the FT claimed he won a “strong mandate” (FT 6/22/2010). In what has to be one of the most flagrant cover-ups in recent history, the media accounts exclude the most egregious facts about the elections and the profoundly authoritarian policies pursued by Santos over the past decade.

Officials say Massachusetts state Rep. Robert Nyman has died after being found unresponsive in the swimming pool at his Hanover home.Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz and police say neighbors pulled the 49-year-old lawmaker out of the pool Friday night as his family called 911. He was pronounced dead at South Shore Hospital.

Iran literally is surrounded by American troops, notes an oil market analyst, Energy and Capital editor Christian A. DeHaemer. There is no evidence of an imminent attack, but he connects a number of recent events and the presence of American soldiers to warn that oil prices might soar -- with or without a pre-emptive strike aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear power ambitions.

comment-To make the statement that "...There is no evidence of an imminent attack..." against Iran is an outright lie.The very facts in this article demonstrate that there is every probability that the US and Israel expect to start some kind of military assault on Iran, and most likely, very soon.

Even as the U.S. appears to be on the mend -- gross domestic product has climbed three straight quarters -- finances in Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and other states show few signs of improvement. Forty-six states face budget shortfalls that add up to $112 billion for the fiscal year ending next June, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research institution. State spending is 12 percent of U.S. GDP.

“States are going to have to cut back spending and raise taxes the same way Greece and Spain are,” says Dean Baker, co- director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “That runs counter to stimulating the economy and will put a big damper on the recovery in the latter half of this year.”

Russian expert Alexei Vlasov thinks this whole "military operation on Iran" is nothing more, than a rumor."I have big doubts that Azerbaijani government, which always thinks first, and acts second, will allow such air strike from its territory. This kind of move goes against the diplomacy of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. The upcoming Clinton visit to Baku is a way to get Azerbaijan to answer one question - how would it behave, if a strike on Iran will happen? I think, Ilham Aliyev will find a way to maintain a much needed balance." said Vlasov.

Jerusalem master plan: Expansion of Jewish enclaves across the city http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jerusalem-master-plan-expansion-of-jewish-enclaves-across-the-city-1.298651The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee is set to approve an unprecedented master plan that calls for the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, a move largely based on construction on privately owned Arab property.The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee is set to approve an unprecedented master plan that calls for the expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, a move largely based on construction on privately owned Arab property.

New York Times reporter calls Zionist terrorism ‘romantic’ http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0626/nyt-calls-zionist-terrorism-romantic/A little-noticed comment in a New York Times interview with Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has critics arguing that it shows the media has a "double standard" when it comes to terrorism.Weiss points out that Irgun, which was fighting for the creation of a Jewish state, was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. That attack killed 91 people, including US and British nationals, and is believed to remain to this day as the most deadly militant attack in the history of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Having had the privilege of speaking with Tom Sullivan, an actual explosive-charge placement technician, we have some new insights to pass along as to how controlled demolition works, where it started, and the effect that 9/11 had on the demolition industry. Sullivan gained his experience as an employee of the leading firm in this field, Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI). Sullivan stresses though “I do not in anyway represent CDI and what I have to say is based on my own experience and training,”

Southern African Development Community (SADC) executive secretary Tomáz Salomão yesterday criticised the European Union for trying to "impose" a preferential free-trade agreement on countries in the region.

Behind razor sharp security walls and thousands of armed police, Canada’s Conservative government is utilising the G20 summit as a political platform to push forward bilateral trade agreements globally, according to recent statements from the Canadian government.

Since the 2001 invasion, the two main justifications for the war have been chasing terrorists and bringing liberal democracy, especially women’s rights. However, the warlord armies and drug gangs who form the basis of the Karzai regime have the same attitudes to democracy and women’s rights as the Taliban — differing only in their higher level of corruption.

Speaking out on environmental genocide, Indigenous Peoples describe the legacy of death and destruction from mining, power plants, toxic dumping and the nuclear industry, at the US Social Forum in Detroit. Indigenous Peoples are consulting and strategizing on energy and climate change, immigration, poverty, treaty rights, sacred sites, cultural preservation, and de-militarization.

The government of the Spanish state has sabotaged an international conference in the Asturias autonomous region of Spain. By doing so, Spain joined the U.S. in supporting the occupation regime in Baghdad.Had it allowed the meeting, the Madrid government could have opened the door to European Union discussions with representatives of the Iraqi Resistance, the only legitimate representatives of the Iraqi people.

On June 21 a delegation from the international participants in the conference presented a Declaration and their complaints to a group from the Spanish Parliament in Madrid.Behind the conference and its cancellation was the instability of the Iraqi puppet regime. Madrid’s actions also showed Spain’s subordinate role with regard to the rest of European imperialism and Washington.

Chavez said Assad's visit was part of a "strategic project of cooperation to build the Caracas-Damascus axis" linking the two socialist countries."Our calling is to play a key role in freeing the world (by fighting) against imperialism, against capitalist and neoliberal hegemony that today threatens the survival of the human race," Chavez said.

As its title suggests, the following analysis sheds new light on Obama’s recent dismissal of General McChrystal. If Webster Tarpley is correct, by appointing General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal in Afghanistan, Obama has apparently either shot himself in the foot or is attempting to remove Petraeus from Washington at a time when Republicans want him to run against Obama in 2012.

comment-theres no question this was to prolong the war but the mineral riches of afghanistan been known for many years,including usgs reports from few years back...USGS Release: Significant Potential for Undiscovered Resources http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1819

Retired army colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega, who on June 9 had been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the disappearance of eleven civilians in 1985, is still not in prison despite calls to do so by the judge and victim families.According to RCN Radio, the retired colonel on Friday "was transferred to the Army Infantry School in Bogota from a cell to face trial over the disappearances victims of the holocaust of the Palace of Justice."

Before, Plazas Vega was in a military hospital until prosecuting investigators concluded that the retired colonel's health allowed him to be transferred to the La Picota prison in Bogota.Families of victims also repeatedly asked for Plazas Vega to be transferred from military facilities to a common prison.

Following the trial, the judge, who ordered authorities to transfer the retired colonel to jail so his sentence could take effect, had to flee the country over alleged death threats.Plazas Vega was sentenced for his role in the disappearance of eleven civilians who were rescued from the Palace of Justice during the 1985 occupation by M-19 guerrillas.

The security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried for two years to secure lucrative defense business in Southern Sudan while the country was under U.S. economic sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and hundreds of pages of documents reviewed by McClatchy.

The effort to drum up new business in East Africa by Blackwater owner Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who had close ties with top officials in the George W. Bush White House and the CIA, became a major element in a continuing four-year federal investigation into allegations of sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery.

comment-of course they wont charge him,the us gov has been funding and training suadanese rebel factions alongw ith israel since 1970's,to charge eric prince would be to reveal their own clandestine support for spla/splam in south sudan...

According to The Daily Mail’s investigations, Maulvi Fazaluallah is spotted residing in Kamdesh district of Nooristan along with 300 militants and other middle level Commanders. These finding also disclose that Maulvi Fazlullah had remained under treatment in a medical facility under US troops in Bagram airbase before he returned to Kamdesh district.

The Daily Mail’s findings indicate further that it is the same area where US troops vacated their posts with the intention of allowing the fleeing Pakistani militants space to regroup. His escape was made possible with the active support of the Afghan intelligence, financially supported by Indian Intelligence agency R&AW and executed by the operatives of Xe-Services while the Xe-Services also work for the Afghan drug mafia and warlords.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

The revelation of an Israeli-linked system for monitoring and potentially listening in to the phone calls of every single person in the U.S. at will opens up the possibility that a massive blackmail operation is the real force shaping media bias and United States policy.

An advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that every person be vaccinated for the seasonal flu yearly, except in a few cases where the vaccine is known to be unsafe.

The pipeline would traverse the territories of 50 indigenous peoples in British Columbia and Alberta as well as 700 rivers, streams and lakes. It would facilitate the expansion of tar sands production and its already vast quantities of toxic pollutants. It would be served by supertankers from a terminal point in the northern coastal town of Kitimat.

There is a not-so-small obstacle in the way of this plan, however, which is a 1971 federal government moratorium on oil tanker traffic along the British Columbia coast. But the review panel has already said it considers the moratorium to have no legal status.

"There is so much opposition that Enbridge can count on legal challenges, it can count on delays and ultimately those delays are going to cost the people who invest in the project," Josh Patterson told the Vancouver Sun on May 3. He is legal counsel for West Coast Environmental Law.

Alabama-based Drummond Co. expects to produce about 24 million tons of coal at its Colombian mines in 2010, up from around 23 million tons last year, a senior company official said Friday.About 30% of the company's output is going to Asia, Alberto Garcia, vice president of the company's mining and hydrocarbon division, told reporters on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference.

The company sends all of its coal by train to the coast where it is loaded onto ships for export.Drummond operates two mines in Colombia in the northern province of Cesar. The first and the largest is called Pribbenow, or La Loma, and the second is El Descanso, which opened in 2009.Garcia said El Descanso is likely to produce 6 million tons this year. "El Descanso is a huge reserve which is just starting," he said.

Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza based on the claim that there was a chance the generators attached to the machines would not be used for medical purposes, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Saturday.

According to Ma'an, the Ramallah-based health ministry said that the generators, which were donated to the Palestinian Authority by a Norwegian development agency, were seized by Israeli officials despite the fact that only one machine was bound for Gaza.

The local and federal governments have resorted to significant measures: barricading the downtown core behind a massive galvanised perimeter fence, erecting checkpoints with x-rays, uprooting trees that police say could be used by demonstrators, and converting a sound stage into a massive temporary detention facility in preparation for mass arrests of protesters.

But with Canadian soldiers, snipers, commandos and police tactical units representing the sharp end of a security budget that is poised to top $1bn, the most significant threat to business as usual for the summit may turn out to be far-flung rural blockades enacted by Canada's long suffering native communities.

North Carolina Congresswoman Sue Myrick warned Friday that Hezbollah may be colluding with drug cartels on the US-Mexican border, and called on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate the matter. Fox News reported Myrick is arguing that the Lebanese militia would soon begin threatening the US as it does Israel.

comment-also see... BS/ALERT!!!- “Mexico is only one part, though probably the most important one, of a theater of operations that stretches from the Venezuelan-Cuban-Iranian alliance and the Andean Ridge, through Columbia and the FARC, up the cartel-controlled drug routes through Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico, and into the United States,” http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2010/03/bsalert-mexico-is-only-one-part-though.html

The Salem-style witch hunts have returned, but the new villains are no longer communists. The Red Scare has been replaced by those who shout Viva Palestina!
From the very highest law-makers right down to ordinary John Doe there is an irrational fear so great that it holds many of them hostage in their homes, workplaces and schools.

about me

i seek no recognition for any info on this blog.all information is purely for informational purposes.its a blog created with the sole intention of relating already well documented facts(and not well known facts)that are for everyone to share.Its in dedication to all the truthers ...